WordPress or other systems – which one to choose?

What to choose – WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, Squarespace or other system (like online shops)?
The first step to answer this question is to ask yourself what you need your website for. In general the division line splits possible options into two sets: website requiring users/members/customers and websites which don’t need users/members.

If you don’t need users management website once created will stay there in the initial shape forever the situation allows you to use basically any simple system. So, in such situation pick up the one you like most and which looks as the simplest one for you. It means that not necessary it will be WordPress. Choose some system where you can drag-and-drop parts of you website if that is all you need.

On the other side, if you need users/members/customers management, for instance you would like to have an online shop, definitely your first choice should be WordPress. As such, out of the box, WordPress comes with ready and tested working authentication system for registration, logins and users management.

WordPress compared to other drag-and-drop systems is much more flexible, not only because of huge number of WordPress themes or plugins(both free and paid), but also because WordPress is based on PHP language, which means that you can rather easily look into cogs behind the scene, so to speak, and modify WordPress functionality. No brute force needed however – WordPress provides set of functions/hooks which help you seamlessly integrate your code into WordPress code.

However, WordPress is not the only Content Management System (CMS) which is flexible. There are also, for instance, Drupal or Joomla. Other systems have their advantages, BUT, part of WordPress flexibility relies not only on the above mentioned functions and hooks (which require coding skills), but also on many free plugins, which can replace coding – you just install a plugin which provides functionality you need. It means, that no coding is needed and WordPress is much more user friendly from point of view of an average user. PHP developers worship Drupal or Joomla or other weird and less known systems, and definitely the other CMS have their specific advantages, and can be flexible, but their flexibility is expensive compared to WordPress, because usually you need more code hours to fix this or that.

Thanks to its architecture WordPress lets you to save money on web designers. Except many free WordPress themes you have also very high quality paid themes, ofter offered with reliable support. The advanced WordPress themes enable you to use your computer mouse to modify functionality and layout of a new paid theme.

OK, but WordPress is just a blogging system, should I use it for my business website?

Well, I would say: WordPress can be also blogging system, but due to its flexibility and architecture it can also be reliable online shop, or any business website you like.

What if I don’t know how to blah blah blah in WordPress…

Well, no worries – in the Internet / Youtube there are many WordPress tutorials and forums. Probability, that you will not find solution of your problem is very low.

To cut it short:

Systems for creating websites based on drag-and-drop interface – such systems are loved by web hosting companies, because of possibility to decrease servers resources usage, the companies can optimise (limit) functionality of such systems.

Systems like Drupal, Joomla and similar CMS – loved by developers, because for most modifications you will need to find rather not cheap web developer who knows such system very well.

WordPress – loved by most business users and bloggers who don’t have much knowledge about web development, but want to save time and money – web development and web design are rather time consuming and expensive things.